Isaiah 6

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The date formula anchors the vision in history: Uzziah died around 740 BCE after a 52-year reign that ended in leprosy (2 Chr 26:16-21). The earthly throne is vacant; the heavenly throne is occupied.
2. The Hebrew uses Adonai (אֲדֹנָי, 'the Lord, Sovereign') rather than the personal name YHWH. This title emphasizes sovereignty and authority.
3. 'The hem of his robe filled the temple' — the Hebrew shulaw (שׁוּלָיו) refers to the skirts or train of a garment. If merely the hem fills the entire temple, the implied scale of God himself is incomprehensible. The temple cannot contain him; even the edge of his clothing overflows it.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Seraphim (שְׂרָפִים) literally means 'burning ones,' from the root saraph ('to burn'). These beings appear only here in the Hebrew Bible. The same root is used for the 'fiery serpents' of Numbers 21:6-8, but the seraphim here are clearly distinct — they have faces, feet, wings, and voices.
2. The three pairs of wings serve three functions: reverence (covering the face — they cannot look at God), modesty (covering the feet, likely a euphemism for the lower body), and service (flying). Only one-third of their capacity is devoted to active ministry; two-thirds is devoted to worship and self-effacement before God.
3. 'Stood above him' — the Hebrew mimma'al lo is ambiguous: it could mean 'above him' (hovering over the throne) or 'above it' (standing on the raised platform). The former reading is more dramatic and is followed here.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The trisagion (triple 'holy') is the only divine attribute tripled in the Hebrew Bible. While some see this as a Hebrew superlative ('most holy'), the threefold repetition goes beyond ordinary intensification. Rabbinic tradition and later Christian theology both found profound significance in the number three.
2. The antiphonal structure — 'one called to another' — suggests responsive, liturgical worship. This is not a solo performance but a cosmic choir in dialogue.
3. Kevodo ('his glory') fills the whole earth, not merely the temple. The glory that fills the temple (v. 1) is not contained by it; it overflows to fill all creation. The seraphim declare a reality already present but not yet universally recognized.
4. YHWH Tseva'ot ('the LORD of Hosts') is the full covenant name plus the military/cosmic title: God of the heavenly armies, of all created powers. The seraphim use the most comprehensive divine title available.

Translator Notes

1. The physical response to the seraphim's cry: the massive stone thresholds of the temple vibrate. This is theophanic language — God's presence causes the material world to tremble (cf. Exod 19:18; 1 Kgs 19:11).
2. The smoke echoes the pillar of cloud in the wilderness (Exod 13:21-22) and the cloud that filled Solomon's temple at its dedication (1 Kgs 8:10-11). Smoke both reveals and conceals God's presence — he is near but not fully visible.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Isaiah uses the woe-cry (oy, אוֹי) on himself — the same prophetic curse-formula he employed against others in chapter 5. The prophet who pronounced 'Woe!' on the wicked now discovers he belongs in the same category before God's holiness.
2. Nidmeti (נִדְמֵיתִי) is variously translated 'I am undone,' 'I am destroyed,' 'I am silenced,' or 'I am cut off.' The root damah can mean 'to be silent,' 'to be destroyed,' or 'to cease.' The ambiguity is productive: Isaiah is simultaneously silenced, destroyed, and cut off from the holy God.
3. 'Unclean lips' — the focus on lips is significant given that Isaiah is a prophet, a man of words. His very instrument of ministry is contaminated. The people he lives among share the same contamination. The confession is corporate as well as individual.
4. 'My eyes have seen the King' — in the ancient Near East, seeing God was understood as fatal (Exod 33:20; Judg 13:22). Isaiah's terror is not irrational but theologically grounded: the unholy cannot survive exposure to the holy.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The seraph takes a coal from the altar — the same altar where sacrifices burn. The purification of Isaiah's lips comes from the fire of sacrifice, connecting his cleansing to the entire sacrificial system. The coal is simultaneously destructive (fire) and restorative (from the place of atonement).
2. Ritspah (רִצְפָּה) means a 'glowing stone' or 'hot coal' — a piece of the altar fire itself. The seraph uses tongs (melqachayim), suggesting the coal is too holy even for a celestial being to handle directly.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The burning coal touches the very part of Isaiah that was 'unclean' — his lips. The purification is specific, targeted, and painful. Fire that destroys dross also purifies gold.
2. Two distinct theological terms describe what happens: avoneka sar ('your guilt is removed' — the weight of iniquity is lifted) and chattateka tekuppar ('your sin is atoned for' — the sin is covered, expiated). The verb kipper (כָּפַּר, 'to atone, to cover') is the same root used for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Full atonement has been accomplished.
3. Isaiah does not atone for himself. The initiative is entirely God's: God's seraph, God's altar fire, God's declaration of pardon. The prophet contributes only his confession (v. 5).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The divine deliberation — 'Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?' — echoes the plural of Genesis 1:26 ('Let us make'). The 'us' has been variously interpreted as the divine council, the Trinity (in Christian reading), or the plural of majesty. In context, God is surrounded by the seraphim and the heavenly court.
2. Isaiah's response — hinneni shelacheni ('Here I am; send me') — is among the most celebrated acts of self-offering in Scripture. The Hebrew is devastatingly brief: two words. Having been destroyed and rebuilt, Isaiah volunteers without hesitation. He does not yet know what the commission will require.
3. The sequence is theologically precise: vision of God (v. 1-4), conviction of sin (v. 5), atonement (vv. 6-7), commission (v. 8). Isaiah could not serve until he was cleansed; he could not be cleansed until he confessed; he could not confess until he saw God's holiness.

Translator Notes

1. The commission is shocking. Isaiah has just volunteered to be God's messenger, and the message is designed to produce incomprehension. The infinitive absolute constructions (shimo'u shamoa, re'u ra'o) create emphatic, ongoing action: 'hear and hear and hear — but never understand.'
2. The phrase 'this people' (ha'am hazzeh) is pointedly distancing — not 'my people' but 'this people,' as if God is already withdrawing covenant intimacy.
3. This verse is quoted by Jesus (Matt 13:14-15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10), by John (John 12:40), and by Paul (Acts 28:26-27) to explain why Israel rejected the Messiah. It became one of the most theologically consequential verses in the Hebrew Bible for the early church.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The three imperatives — hashmen ('make fat/dull'), hakbed ('make heavy'), and hasha ('seal shut/smear over') — target the three organs of spiritual perception: heart (understanding), ears (hearing), eyes (seeing). The order is significant: the heart (the seat of understanding in Hebrew thought) is addressed first.
2. The pen ('lest') clause reveals a terrifying purpose: the hardening prevents repentance and healing. This is judicial hardening — God confirming a people in the spiritual condition they have already chosen. Compare Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened after he first hardened it himself (Exod 7-10).
3. The verb vashav ('and turn') is the Hebrew word for repentance (teshuvah). The entire cycle of salvation is named: see, hear, understand, repent, be healed. The commission forecloses every step.
4. This is perhaps the most disturbing verse in the prophets. It raises profound questions about divine sovereignty and human responsibility that the text does not resolve — it simply states the commission and leaves the reader to wrestle.

Translator Notes

1. Isaiah's response — 'How long?' (ad-matay) — is the classic lament question (cf. Ps 13:1-2; Hab 1:2). He does not ask 'Why?' but 'How long?' — accepting the commission while pleading for its limit.
2. The answer is devastating: the hardening will continue until total destruction. Cities emptied, houses abandoned, land desolate. The description echoes the covenant curses of Leviticus 26:31-35 and Deuteronomy 28:51-52.
3. The threefold desolation — cities, houses, land — reverses the threefold gift of the promised land: inhabited cities, built houses, cultivated land (Deut 6:10-11).

Translator Notes

1. Richaq ('has sent far away') is the language of exile — God himself drives the people from the land. The 'forsaking' (azuvah) describes the land as abandoned, left desolate. The land mourns without its people.
2. The verse completes the answer to 'How long?': until exile. The hardening continues until the covenant relationship has been ruptured to its uttermost limit.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This verse is textually the most difficult in the chapter. The MT, LXX, and Qumran scrolls differ significantly. The MT reading is followed here, though it is compressed and possibly corrupt.
2. The image shifts from total destruction to qualified hope: even after decimation (a 'tenth' surviving), even after that remnant is burned again, a stump endures. The metaphor of a tree stump that retains life — capable of sending out new shoots — introduces the remnant theology that will dominate the rest of Isaiah.
3. Zera qodesh ('holy seed') is the theological climax of the entire chapter. The 'holy' (qodesh) of the seed echoes the 'holy, holy, holy' of the seraphim (v. 3). God's holiness, which threatened to destroy Isaiah and Israel, also preserves a remnant. Holiness both judges and saves.
4. The stump image directly anticipates Isaiah 11:1: 'A shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse.' The Messianic hope is planted in the soil of judgment.